Friday, September 2, 2011

Tutorial: How to Prepare and Flatten Bottle Caps for Crafting

One the major design elements in the hair bows I create are the emblems. The metal in each is actually from a bottle cap and there are a few steps that have to be done in order to get them ready for use. The bottle caps bought in bulk from a brewery supply store and have a liner inside which is what creates the seal with the bottle. You can buy bottle caps from craft outlets that already have the liner removed but they are much more expensive. I did a cost analysis and including the shipping to get the bottle caps each cap costs me about $0.05. Also I flatten mine before use. These are the steps that I go through to get them ready for having an image added to them.

Bottle Cap with the liner. This is how I receive them.

Get a pot of water to a good boil and add the bottle caps.

The liners have begun to deform as they melt slightly. You can see the edges curling up on this one. You can spot them in the pot doing this and just fish out the ones that are ready. Only take out one or two at a time.

The aluminum will cool very fast after they are pulled them out of the water. I drop them quickly on a towel to remove most of the hot water water and then I just use my fingers to gently pull the liner out.

Be quick about it or it'll begin to cool again and you may be left with a small bit in the center that stays stuck.

In this case I pull out my Xacto knife and carefully remove this last little piece. If it is being very stubborn I will throw it back into the pot of boiling water.

The tool I use to flatten my bottlecaps is a tortilla press. Yep, nothing fancy. I've read of people using all sorts of equipment but this works great for me. I got it off of Amazon for ~$12. I couldn't find any in nearby stores.

Put the bottle cap in the press towards the middle and close.

Voila! A cleaned and flattened bottle cap ready for use.

I hope that you found this helpful. Do you have a great tip for making a craft project easy to do? If so please share.